Hawk1981
VIP Member
- Apr 1, 2020
- 209
- 270
- 73
During the secession crisis and subsequent Civil War the Southern upcountry yeomen discovered themselves as a political class. From the earliest days of settlement, there had never been a single white South. In 1860 a majority of white Southerners lived not in the plantation belt but in the upcountry, an area of small farmers and herdsmen who owned few slaves or none at all. In these yeoman areas, the elections for delegates to secession conventions in the winter of 1860-61 produced massive repudiations of disunion and from the outset of the war disloyalty was extensive in the Southern mountains.
From its beginnings the Confederacy suffered from a rising tide of intense domestic hostility, a violent inner civil war, brought on largely by those most responsible for the Confederacy’s creation. Planters excused themselves from the draft in various ways, then grew far too much cotton and tobacco, and not nearly enough food. Soldiers went hungry, as did their families back home. Women defied Confederate authorities by staging food riots from Richmond, Virginia, to Galveston, Texas. Soldiers deserted by the tens of thousands, and draft evasion became commonplace. By 1864, the draft law was practically impossible to enforce and two-thirds of the Confederate army was absent with or without leave. Many deserters and draft dodgers formed armed bands that controlled vast areas of the Southern countryside.
Long conscious of its remoteness from the rest of the state, supporters of the Confederacy formed a small minority in East Tennessee. This mountainous area had long been overshadowed economically and politically by the wealthier, slave-owning counties to the west, and voted by a two-to-one margin, to remain within the Union. Delegates from the region called for secession from the state. Senator Andrew Johnson remained at his post in Washington once the war had begun, and in August 1861 East Tennessee voters elected three Unionists to represent them in the federal Congress.
Meeting to repudiate Virginia’s ordinance of secession, delegates from the western counties formed the Restored Government of Virginia that sent recognized congressmen and senators to the US Congress in 1861. Two years later this Virginia government recognized the departure of the western counties and the resulting West Virginia entered the Union as a separate state.
Other southern mountain counties also rejected secession from the outset. One of the strongest pockets of pro-Union activity in the Deep South was Winston County, Alabama, where the majority of the subsistence farmers saw Alabama's secession as an illegal act. Winston County's residents held a famous meeting at a local tavern and floated the idea of breaking ties with Alabama. While they never formally seceded, many of the county’s young men hid in the hills and forests to avoid conscription by the Confederate army, and others fled north and fought for the Union. By the war’s end, Winston had supplied twice as many soldiers to the North as it had the South.
From its beginnings the Confederacy suffered from a rising tide of intense domestic hostility, a violent inner civil war, brought on largely by those most responsible for the Confederacy’s creation. Planters excused themselves from the draft in various ways, then grew far too much cotton and tobacco, and not nearly enough food. Soldiers went hungry, as did their families back home. Women defied Confederate authorities by staging food riots from Richmond, Virginia, to Galveston, Texas. Soldiers deserted by the tens of thousands, and draft evasion became commonplace. By 1864, the draft law was practically impossible to enforce and two-thirds of the Confederate army was absent with or without leave. Many deserters and draft dodgers formed armed bands that controlled vast areas of the Southern countryside.
Long conscious of its remoteness from the rest of the state, supporters of the Confederacy formed a small minority in East Tennessee. This mountainous area had long been overshadowed economically and politically by the wealthier, slave-owning counties to the west, and voted by a two-to-one margin, to remain within the Union. Delegates from the region called for secession from the state. Senator Andrew Johnson remained at his post in Washington once the war had begun, and in August 1861 East Tennessee voters elected three Unionists to represent them in the federal Congress.
Meeting to repudiate Virginia’s ordinance of secession, delegates from the western counties formed the Restored Government of Virginia that sent recognized congressmen and senators to the US Congress in 1861. Two years later this Virginia government recognized the departure of the western counties and the resulting West Virginia entered the Union as a separate state.
Other southern mountain counties also rejected secession from the outset. One of the strongest pockets of pro-Union activity in the Deep South was Winston County, Alabama, where the majority of the subsistence farmers saw Alabama's secession as an illegal act. Winston County's residents held a famous meeting at a local tavern and floated the idea of breaking ties with Alabama. While they never formally seceded, many of the county’s young men hid in the hills and forests to avoid conscription by the Confederate army, and others fled north and fought for the Union. By the war’s end, Winston had supplied twice as many soldiers to the North as it had the South.